


thieves

by catarinquar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth, Post-Season 9 (X-Files)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 20:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17628743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catarinquar/pseuds/catarinquar
Summary: She had not been bored with the rain then, but they’ve tracked the Oregon trail backwards in dented Ford Sedans, taken detours for ten years. They’ve ended up in Georgia, and it is still raining.-post-the truth. they're on the run, hiding out in yet another motel room.





	thieves

**Author's Note:**

> this is v2.0 of a short writing exercise for class that was really about mulder & scully all along, only mrs. hemingway didn’t know that.

“Is it still raining?” His voice is muffled, trapped in the crook of his elbow as he lies comma-curled on the bed. Left side; lined up on the right are half-empty takeout containers.

It _is_ raining, but she supposes the television is loud enough that he would not be able to hear it. She draws the damp curtain back, but he is glued to the screen. “Yes,” she relents. “It still is.”

His eyes flit to her and she sees him flinch, sees his right shoulder lift and his lips part. A loud crack from the television is followed by uproar, and he snaps back, kicks out a leg in nervous sympathy. Swears when the excitement turns to static, white noise and a greyish flicker like the dirty snow outside.

She turns back to the window, watches a car drive out from the parking lot. At the intersection thirty-something metres down, it crosses headlight beams with another. Swerves out and avoids a collision.

She notices his shadow more than him, getting up to fiddle with the antennae and cables, to drum on the casing. He’s relentless, has to chase every scent he catches. So much Home, Pennsylvania. _Stop it_ , she thinks; not all things can be fixed. _Stop it, stop it, stopitstopitstop -_ “stop it.”

The shadow jerks. “Sorry,” he offers, flopping back on the bed and toppling over a box of greasy noodles. He pokes a cold piece of chicken with a curious chopstick and sighs. “Do you remember Oregon?”

Oh. She remembers cheap motel rooms, a neon flicker of _No Vac ncy_ , and then the fire. Remembers different takeout, the mud and the rain. She had not been bored with it then. She remembers - they were laughing in it. But they’ve tracked the Oregon trail backwards in dented Ford Sedans, taken detours for ten years. They’ve ended up in Georgia, and it is still raining.

“No,” she tells him before letting the curtain fall again. No, she doesn’t remember at all. These days it’s all car models and registration plates, the face of whoever looks twice. The face of her son.

He jumps up again to turn the television off, and it makes the rain louder. It’s hail now, she realises. “Would _you_ quit that?”

“Quit what?” she sneers.  She could quit him. Put him to sleep and slip out of the room. He’d wake up vulnerable and all alone, start calling her at three a.m. the way he used to, and she’d start letting it go to voicemail the way she never did back then. “What is there left to quit?”

He paces in the space between the bed and the television, leaving mud tracks on the carpet with the shoes he never took off. It was dirty already, but she sees the mud and thinks of paw prints, thinks of dogs, thinks of those eyes and his restlessness, his need to please and be petted. Tactile and protective. And yet, hunting on his own remains instinctual. “What's wrong?”

It’s wrong that he’s leaving mud tracks on the dirty carpet, and it’s wrong that he’s left grease on her side of the bed. It’s wrong that he left, except she sent him away. She can’t see outside anymore, so she picks at the upholstery of the armchair. Same dizzying pattern as the curtains, distracting from stains. She hugs her knees, makes herself smaller when he reaches for her. Instinctual. No, _instinctual_ is his confused hurt at disappointing and being dismissed. _Wrong_ \- is that he has to ask. “I’m sorry. Nothing, I’m fine.”

“No, it’s not. None of this is _fine_ ,” he says, indicating with a sweeping motion. Suitcases, spilled noodles, the dingy bathroom and the shower curtain that ended up painted with half his hair dye.

“But _I_ am fine.” Her bags are almost packed. She could be out of here in five minutes if she doesn’t stop to kiss him goodbye, but so could he. That’s the same, too: he never unpacks at all, and he never takes his shoes off. Always ready to run. _Leave_ , she’d say, but she already did that: she begged him to leave for _them_ and now she’s here for _him_ , with him, and running. She unfolds a fraction. “It’s not your fault. None of it ever was.”

“Of course it’s -” just that he - ran off, had something to chase, _left_ \- disappeared, died, came back somehow less and so much more than he was. Time had changed the physical space that used to be his, but he left his name on the birth certificate and then left his family because she told him to and for once he listened. Of _course_ it’s - “my fault.”

“Stop it,” she snaps, because her pack behaviour is as instinctive as his necessary but no less self-imposed solitude, because she knows what a threatened animal looks like. “You don’t get to be the martyr.”

“No? You don’t get to _not_ be the martyr and then still - _fuck!”_ He falls to his knees in front of her, leans his forehead against her drawn-up legs. His nails dig into her thighs through the fabric of the sweats she’s wearing. They’re his only in the sense that when she bought them at Target in Nowhere, New Mexico, she had thought they were for him. She lets him drag her up from the chair and follows him as far as to the edge of the bed before crossing her arms again. In front of her, between them, _stopcomenofurther_. “You don’t get to _blame_ yourself.”

“Oh, like you don’t blame me.” She looks up at him, and because he’s never been good at taking directions before running off, he leans over her and kisses her. Steals all thought from her, and she finds her hands clawing at his shoulders.

“No, exactly like _you_ blame _me_. Like you… hate me, a little.” He growls, nibbling on her lower lip. His eyes are dark and his nostrils flare, he’s sinewy heat and _right,_  and it would be so easy to bite back.

It isn’t that easy. She leans away, says, “it’s not that easy. That’s my side of the bed, and it’s your mess.” He draws back as if she _did_ bite him, stacks the boxes before stuffing them in the trash can in the bathroom, leaving a trail of chili sauce and chopsticks. It really, really isn’t that easy, so while his back is turned, she steals the keys. Slips on her coat and out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> i apologise! again! but you can still follow me on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


End file.
